Don’t laugh: the emerging conspiracy theory politics that is going to blight Britain further

There are, I found out recently, Beergate truthers. Way out on the fringes, in a community fed by the Daily Mail, GB News and Leave.EU, there is a group who have persuaded themselves that the two police investigations into Sir Keir Starmer were a sham and that the Conservative government will in due course heroically uncover this perversion of justice caused by him cavorting with a bottle of beer.

You might be tempted to smile. I was. You should resist the temptation. Conspiracy theorists have wrecked the American polity and they are set to wreck the British polity too. It’s happening right now.

For as the Conservatives watch this government definitively fail, they are looking for explanations they can sell. Here is Lord Frost’s:

“Liz Truss is taking on the economic establishment — the conventional view, the view of the international hectoring classes like the IMF, the European Commission, the Mark Carneys and the Gordon Browns, the editorial board of the Financial Times and The Economist, the whole ghastly crew that thinks that the West inevitably faces stagnation and decline…

There are many, many people who want the Government to fail — much of the media, unreconciled Remainers, the international commentariat and, it seems, not just Labour but all too many Tory MPs. It is all the more important not to give them unnecessary ammunition.”

He was not alone. Isabel Oakeshott opined: What we don’t need right now: members of the unelected global elite -Mark Carney, IMF etc -sticking their oar in. See also: EU vested interests in the UK remaining a big state, high tax, low growth economy.

Lord Ashcroft came up with the theory, supposedly passed onto him by a currency trader in the back of his taxi, that the pound was crashing because they were afraid Labour were going to get into power. Meanwhile, Guido Fawkes is building a theory that the OBR has been nobbled by Torsten Bell in pursuit of his own political agenda.

You can see it here, a conspiracy theory being built in plain sight. The Prime Minister has even given it a name: the anti-growth coalition. For what is a coalition if not a conspiracy?

The fact that it is incoherent will not stop it bedevilling British politics for years. The betrayal myth is going to be simple: this government was going to lead the country to a glorious new post-Brexit future but it was sabotaged by the deep state acting in concert with Remainers, tax-and-spenders and the global elites with a vested interest in keeping Britain down. This supposed conspiracy goes deep. It encompasses Jamie Oliver, the RSPB and the East Yorkshire Conservatives. Please, don’t smile.

To be clear, this government is failing because it has hopeless policies and is implementing them shambolically. That is obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes who is willing to use them. But that won’t include the many on the hard right who have been radicalised in an ecosystem built around Brexit identity. They have far too much invested in their world view to abandon it simply because it has come into crunching contact with reality and come off second best.

The fact there’s not a word of truth in this mad conspiracy theory, however, will not stop them. The opposite: just as we’ve seen with the anti-vaccine mob, the lack of evidence simply creates an opportunity for those amoral enough to provide material to muddy the waters. You can see some of the early attempts above.

Let’s assume, as looks likely now, that Labour wins the next election and wins it handsomely. The current government will still have some time before then to continue laying the groundwork for pursuing its conspiracy theory in opposition. Times look likely to be tough for a long time to come, not least because of the decisions made by this government. Labour can expect to have to make some unpopular decisions. And the conspiracists will be waiting to exploit that.

The playbook is already out there, courtesy of QAnon. People laugh at that too, but now a cohort of QAnon politicians is emerging in the USA, taking their lunacy into the decision-making process. And I fear that we are going to see this all over again here, given this emerging conspiracy theory is being pandered to at every level from the Prime Minister down with a media complex ready and willing to support it. Whether or not the current exponents believe it, they will be followed by those who do and who draw up their policies accordingly. Expect paranoia and reprisals whenever the conspiracists get their opportunity to exercise some power.

So don’t smile, don’t laugh, be worried. British politics looks set to get still worse.